"shock News" From Tony Blair

Those who tuned in late last evening at the appropriate times for, say, Sports/Weather/Money/Entertainment reports were left with only non-stop coverage of the Blair interview….claimed to be first conveyed to Adam Boulton or Andrew Marr, or whoever

As the mass excitement at such ‘breaking news’ invariably overwhelms the Sky Newsroom, could they perhaps stop to remember the many who tune in at specific times, solely for particular news reports.

An onscreen caption advising retiming/cancellation of the ‘regular’ hourly reports would suffice.

Well why let facts get in the way of a good story. Particularly true of sky news where it goes grubbing arund trying to find a story to fit its particular political bias. The overthetop reporting now of the so called fight between Blair and Brown, the “stop the press” reporting of Tony Blair’s medical condition. There was a program on BBC – Grumpy old men – and they took the 24/7 news programs apart – there is seldom any continuous shock horror stories – there is seldom any 9/11 event every hour – but to justify their existence stations like Sky news have to report in these terms. Notice the language from smug little reporters like for example John Graig – a disagreement is a split, a war – knives out – blah,blah. Was there ever so much news before the 24/7 stations or did we just have normal lives then and when something big happened then we stopped and noticed- This rolling wallpaper of non-news, chewing-gum for the eyes and the concentration on personality rather than fact, in the end will desensitive us and the danger is is that we will stop caring.

Just as a follow up – a translation from an article in the german paper Die Zeit talking about the Kelly affairIts not just the BBC – seems to be the trend now in most broadcasters“It would wrong to reduce the problem to a single reporter and an unsatisfactorily investigated and essentially false report. Andrew Gilligan is not a rare bird that accidentally landed in BBC’s cage. He embodies a new journalistic culture that has infected the BBC and which increasingly colors its journalistic output and which stands in sharp contrast to the work ethic that was the foundation of the worldwide reputation of this broadcaster. Soberly dissociated journalism that is guided by the ethos of objectivity and impartiality no longer dominates at the BBC. The sensational story, the exciting scoop, more often than not, count more than a differentiated analysis. Even BBC reporters succumb to the temptation to make news, instead of reporting the news correctly. They want to be players on the field of politics, instead of just having to explain the game”and if they don’t get their own way, or the story takes off in a direction that is not the one that the journalists or the newsstation wants then most of the comment will be sullied by scorn, prejudice and petulance. The more you read it or hear it , the more you get the sense that the modern journalist is prone to behaving like a child throwing its rattle out of the pram because it has not got what it wanted.

that’s one of the reasons that I far prefer the older broadcast journalists! (ie the new OTT reporting culture you describe above).

Not confined to rolling or TV news tho’; it’s the print media too… did you see the Guardian’s front page? Brownites saying Blair’s announcement that he was seeking to stay put for a whole third term (gasp), stated while GB was ‘out of the country’ was apparently analogous to “an African coup”.Beat that for OTT, Sky News (or anyone) for heaven’s sake.